Teachers!

• Do you ask your students for feedback on your lessons and courses?
• Do you plan to include feedback from your students in the future?

Planned or not, it's already happening
You can see their feedback in the quality of your relationship, the communication between you, and your shared sense of purpose.

As a teacher you probably give your students feedback all the time. Not just when you return their test papers with a grade, but every time you get into conversation with them. The tone of your voice and your body language speak loudly, much louder than your words. You probably already know that.

And the students give you plenty of feedback in the tone of their voices and their body language. You probably already know that too.

The challenge is to get some clarity and constructive changes from their feedback.

So I'm suggesting that you, as teacher, ask your students for feedback in a more concrete and planned way than simply observing the general tone of voice and body language. Based on the information you receive you will be able to influence the quality of your relationship, the communication between you, and your shared sense of purpose.

So what's coming up in your mind right now about asking students for feedback? If your relationship with the class so far has been less than wonderful, some students might use feedback as an opportunity for revenge. You might learn some inconvenient truths about your teaching. You might risk having your self-confidence shattered by certain remarks. So let's see what you can do to minimise the potential damage so that you can get to the useful information that can guide you in developing your relationship with your students.

• First of all, the feedback can be anonymous.
• Second, the feedback can focus on one lesson, or part of a lesson.
• Then, depending on your current relationship, interpret the feedback with the knowledge that there might be some revenge going on.
  Take a pinch of salt with the feedback.

I feel confident that teachers can design feedback forms, so I will give just a few examples here.

Anonymous Feedback
Use one sheet for the whole class.
Pass it round the room, or pin it to the door.
Good for a first experience of giving feedback.

What did you think of today's lesson?

Poor
OK
Good
Great

Detailed Feedback
Use one sheet for each student.
Good for allowing more detailed comments

What did you think of today's lesson?

Explain what you want the students to give you feedback on, for example:

Contents
How relevant was it for this course?

Delivery
How interesting was it?

Effect
How much did you learn?

                    Poor     OK    Good     Great    Comments

Contents 

Delivery

Effect  

After five years of research, asking teachers what works really well in their classrooms, and relating what they told me to the Core Skills that are required of a Coach, I notice that there are at least a dozen distinct, interconnected coaching skills that teachers use in the classroom.

How might a coach approach talking about rubrics in a classroom?

What's a rubric? Rubrics are a means of sharing  expectations, providing focused feedback on work in progress, and measuring results.

I have used rubrics as a teacher AND as a coach for a wide range of purposes. They are useful, can be time-consuming and can be heavy to employ. Yet, there's deeper benefits to them than simply grading results.

Look at Rubistar for examples and tools for creating school subject rubrics. Here is an example from the Rubistar website.

Participation and Professionalism
Let us suppose that a school teacher has designed a rubric regarding how students work in class.

She has identified a number of key factors, and brilliantly named them:

• Politeness
• Promptness
• Professionalism
• Preparedness
• Problem-Solving

Here's what a coach-like approach might sound like.

• The teacher writes the heading and the 5 key factors on the board
• and says "This is part of what we shall focus on in November (pause)."
  
• "What's included in 'Politeness'?".
• "What might teachers, parents, (employers,) and other students include in the meaning of the key factor 'Politeness'?". "What do you include in the meaning of the key factor 'Politeness'?"
• The teacher gathers the ideas from the students on the whiteboard.
• "What might your, and some different people's reasons be for including 'Politeness' in a course such as this one?". "What might yours be?"
  
• "What could be some of the short-term and long term benefits to you, and to others from getting a high score on the key factor 'Politeness'?", "What benefits can you think of?"
  
• The teacher then splits the class into 5 groups (using what she knows about their general personalities, and their current eagerness to respond to the previous questions)
• "Group A will work with 'Politeness', Group B will work with 'Promptness' etc"

The resulting rubrics
After the set period of time the students then represent their groups and share what they have discussed.

They answer:

1. what's included in the key factor
   
2. why it is included
3. what the benefits are

These results are written large on paper and pinned near the door to the room so that it can be seen by the students as they come in, and leave.

My own growth as a rubric-writer
Initially I borrowed rubrics from previous courses, and the ones on websites like Rubistar. Later, I started writing my own rubrics. Then I realised that the best thing to do is to educate the students in writing their own rubrics. Sometimes laziness is a virtue.

I have found that, with a little prompting, students often come up with almost the same rubric descriptions that I have previously chosen. In some cases they have better descriptions, and of course I use their self-generated rubrics.

The noted neurologist turned educator talks about the science of boredom, how to get students' attention, and the most important lessons for 21st-century learning.
Hold students' attention

One of many inspiring and informative videos from www.edutopia.org